


Benison

by Eva



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:03:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/pseuds/Eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Greg Lestrade was a wizard, what sort of wizard would he be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Benison

1.  
The man smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s cut to the chase, Inspector. You are a wizard, and you’ve been hiding it with a great deal of success for forty years.”

Greg’s heart gave a lurch. “I--I don’t--”

“It was interesting pattern, to be fair.” The man’s eyes were like ice. “No storms, no fires, no swirling morasses of emotional plague... You gave us very little to work with.”

“I have never hurt anyone,” Greg said, his voice choked with anger and fear. The rather dull and dusty office had become a place of nightmare, every shadow leering at him and the air turning suddenly chill and thin.

“And yet, there is a pattern.” A manila folder appeared, as if by magic, in the man’s hand, and he put down on the desk with an artful nonchalance, proceeding to flip through it lazily. “Your friends and coworkers, receiving promotions and positions due to spectacular fortune; quickly outpacing you, though you work as hard, if not harder, than they.”

Greg shook his head, staring in dismal horror at the folder.

“Your family, well. If one is going to discover he has cancer, he ought to hope he’s related to you. Not a one of seven relatives has failed to recover, and completely, at that.”

“I can’t cure cancer,” Greg almost laughed, but the sound was desperate even to his own ears.

“Even your wife has had the good fortune to discover her, ah, soulmate--”

“Shut up!” Greg curled his hands into fists and shut his eyes tight after that outburst. In the stinging silence, he heard the folder close.

“You are a benison.”

“I don’t understand,” Greg said, swallowing hard. He opened his eyes again but couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the folder, evidence of the end of his freedom, and possibly his life. He had yet to hear of a wizard who had gone before the courts and then gone free.

He had never, ever hurt anyone. He didn’t think, with his particular ability, that he could. Didn’t that count for anything?

“A benison is a blessing,” the man said, and Greg could see in his peripheral vision that he was smiling again. “You bring good luck to those around you. Very good luck, in fact.”

Greg shook his head, trying to hide the quick, panicked breaths that marked his stress. “That’s all circumstantial, and you know it.”

“Of course it’s circumstantial. Circumstantial is all I need to have you arrested and tried. But that’s not what this meeting is about.”

“No?” Greg managed, lifting his chin and trying to stare his tormenter down.

“No,” the man said. “I wanted to thank you.”

Greg could only stare.

“Three months ago, my brother was, well.” The man smiled, and it looked painful. His eyes were dark with an emotion Greg couldn’t label. “My brother was addicted to heroin and dying slowly, painfully, and willfully, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to help him. Everything I tried made it worse.” He laughed, a short, sharp sound, looking away for a moment in which the dim light sparkled on his lashes. “Two months ago, he was fine.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Greg whispered, the name hanging in the air.

“Sherlock Holmes,” the man repeated. “Not even Sherlock Holmes could get over a debilitating drug addiction in a month, Inspector. Unless, it so happens, he spent that month in your care.” He picked up the folder, weighing it in his hands. “I find the words easy enough to say, but they don’t ease my feeling of debt.”

“Look, I don’t know what you want,” Greg said, the words spilling out in a rush. “If you’re good, if you’re pleased that I helped your brother, can’t you just let me go?”

“I intend to,” the man said, and Greg almost fell over from the shock of hearing those words. “But not with a shadow hanging over your head, or mine. This folder, Inspector Lestrade, contains all the accumulated data on your possible classification. Every last piece,” he emphasised, the strength of his gaze holding Greg silent and still. “The agents who worked on it, over a period of fifteen years, have all been reassigned, with many taking posts in different countries. They don’t know each other and they never will. Computer records have been erased. This is the case against you, and I am giving it to you.” He held it out, leaning slightly over the desk.

Greg stared at it. He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t yet make himself move to take it. “So, I save your brother’s life, and you save mine? A fair trade?”

“Something like that,” the man said, and shook the folder. “Take it, Inspector.”

He did, taking those few steps forward so he could snatch the folder from the man’s hand. It was thick and heavy, and all the more terrifying for that. “Then I’m free,” he said uncertainly, looking up into the man’s eyes one more time.

“Completely,” the man promised, and it was a promise, with steel behind it. Greg swallowed again and clutched the folder to his chest, backing to the door. “Good day, Inspector.”

“Goodbye,” Greg said, and bolted.

2.

Sherlock looked through the folder impatiently, seeming to cast papers aside when Greg knew that, in the split second he had looked at them, he’d fairly memorised them. “I’m surprised this wasn’t your death warrant years earlier,” he said grudgingly, halfway through. “Fire up the stove, would you? You’ll want to burn every last piece.”

“I’m aware,” Greg said, opening his beer. “I was planning to do that ten minutes ago.”

“It’s a power play, you realise.”

Greg tilted his head. “Pardon?”

Sherlock looked up at him, eyes as cold and sharp as his brother’s. “There was no point in giving this to you. He could have destroyed it far more easily on his own, which would have been an even safer bet. He wanted you to know that your life was in his hands, and he granted you clemency.”

“He wanted to thank me,” Greg said, taking a seat opposite him at the rickety kitchen table. He was desperately believing Annie’s claim, that she was visiting her family back in Dorset, but Mycroft Holmes’ words were still ringing in his head. Soulmate, he’d said.

“Don’t be an idiot!” Sherlock snapped, and grabbed for Greg’s cigarettes. “He’s about as demonstrative as I am--” Greg almost choked on his beer-- “and he’s no fool. He knows how effective your ability is, and he wants it for himself.”

“I’m hardly likely to see him again,” Greg scoffed, and earned another glare.

“You’ll see him just as often as he wants to see you, because he doesn’t need this,” Sherlock picked up a few papers and slapped them down on the table again. “He doesn’t have to have evidence to have you disappeared.”

Greg let out a breath in a huff. “Then why have it at all? And why give it to me?”

“Because he wants you to know that you have him to thank for your life!” Sherlock said, and slammed his hand on the papers, making Greg wince. “A power play, as I said!”

“Sometimes people actually want to say thank you, and they want to make grand gestures like this, to satisfy their own emotional needs,” Greg said, meeting Sherlock’s incensed glare with implacable patience.

“Not only is that ridiculous, but it would be a waste of time and energy, and if there’s one thing my brother doesn’t waste, it’s energy,” Sherlock said, his lips pulled back in distaste. “Laziest beast in all of England, rivaled worldwide only by the sloth.”

Greg spread his hands. “Sherlock. Look. I’m not being investigated anymore. I’m going to be pleased about it. And if your brother thinks he’s going to get something out of this, well, I’ll deal with him moving into my flat and sleeping on the sofa when the wife’s gone the same as I’ve done with you. I’m untrained and have no idea how to control this, this ability, and at forty years old I can hardly be expected to learn.”

“You deserve every last thing that’s coming to you,” Sherlock told him, closing the folder with contained violence and shoving it toward him. “Give me something to work on.”

“I can’t keep giving you case files; I’m going to get in trouble,” Greg said, but it was without heat. Sherlock was surprisingly helpful in his less than helpful way, pointing out avenues of exploration while complaining loudly of NSY’s lack of reasoning skills.

“Get your new friend to help out with that,” Sherlock snapped back, accepting the case file with eager hands. “And burn this,” he added, pushing the folder even closer to Greg.

3.

Sherlock was digging his valuables out of the safe Greg and Annie no longer bothered to use when Greg got home. “What are you doing?” he asked, dumping his coat on the bed.

“I have a flat, a flatmate, and when you wake up to the necessity of my involvement, I’ll have a case,” Sherlock said with considerable satisfaction, tucking things into his coat so that Greg couldn’t see what had been hidden in his home. He whirled around and darted over to Greg, grabbing his face and pulling their foreheads together with an audible clunk.

“Ow,” Greg said.

“I want this to work,” Sherlock told him, his hands cold on Greg’s face. “He’s patient, unattached, neat, and has experience with confronting dangerous situations and severed body parts.”

“You’re giving me a small heart attack,” Greg said.

“Ah, but he’s good for that, too. He was an army doctor.” Sherlock backed up, looking incredibly smug. “Honestly, I can’t imagine a more competent individual. The limp is a problem, but I think I can work around that.”

“You can--” Greg shook his head. “Well. All right. You have your wizard cop and your army doctor. What more do you need?”

Sherlock went back to kick the safe closed. “A better arch-nemesis than my brother and I’d be set. Went for coffee the other day, did you? I can only hope he hasn’t sucked all the good fortune out of you.”

Greg’s face twitched, but Sherlock was rarely aware of any innuendo that might be attached to his word choices--unless he wanted to be, of course. He was frustrating that way, and in many other ways as well. 

“Any inkling as to what he’s up to now? Destroying a small nation’s economy for the good of the global market; plotting the assassination of a figure who might lead an uprising somewhere?” Sherlock’s smile was cruel. “Don’t you feel privileged to be a part of his schemes?”

“Where’s the new flat?” Greg demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. As it so happened, and as Sherlock knew very well, Greg had no idea what Mycroft was up to. Their infrequent meetings for coffee were always initiated by Mycroft, who had the most damnable talent at turning any questions Greg had around and getting him to open up about Sherlock, his caseload, or his personal life. 

It hadn’t been quite as horrifying to contemplate before Sherlock had convinced him that Mycroft ran the country behind everyone’s back. Now Greg knew that the mind behind the British Government knew about the time he’d been left behind in a restaurant by his infuriated wife and had had to settle the check while the rest of the patrons very obviously didn’t stare, and had seemed very genuinely sympathetic about it.

No one wanted their government to be sympathetic about their failing marriage.

“Two-two-one Baker Street,” Sherlock said, turning his collar up. “I’ll see you there when you’ve found the next one, then?”

Greg shook his head. “Yeah, sure.” As Sherlock went for the door, he added, “Good luck with the flat.”

“Concentrate on that,” Sherlock instructed, and left.

4\. 

His phone rang and Greg picked it up gratefully, saved from the tedium of his audiobook. “Lestrade.”

“I would hope so,” Mycroft said, as he did every single time Greg answered in his usual manner. Most of the time he preempted it by checking the caller and greeting Mycroft by name. “Are you back from your holidays yet?”

“Driving back now,” Greg said slowly.

“You’re not supposed to be answering your phone while driving.”

Greg rolled his eyes. “My other option was Patricia Cornwell.”

“I suppose a terrible car accident might be preferable. Greg, would you mind driving out to Devon?”

“Er, yes,” Greg said bluntly, aware that trying to side-eye his phone was making his driving even less safe, but unable to help it.

“Will you do it anyway if I tell you that Sherlock and John are likely to get themselves into unmanageable trouble?”

“What sort of trouble can’t you manage?” Greg demanded.

Mycroft sighed just loud enough for him to hear. “They’re poking around the Baskerville Research Facility and I can’t leave London right now to drag them back by their ears. You’ll be pleased to know that Sherlock got them in using an identification card he stole from me months ago.”

“That does, actually, make me feel better about myself,” Greg admitted, “but I don’t see why I have to go out there and drag them home. Call the facility and tell them the card is stolen. If they can’t get in--”

“They’re not looking for anything inside it. They’re after something that may have broken out of it.”

There was a headache beginning right behind Greg’s left eyeball, a headache commonly associated with the Holmes brothers. “What kind of research does this place do?”

“Anything that might need to be hidden out in Dartmoor. And before you ask, they’re probably looking for something created through the use of genetic engineering rather than magic.”

He almost hit the brakes right there on the M3. “There are magic users in the facility? Don’t you have them all killed?”

There was a long moment of silence. “You honestly think I have magic users killed?”

He was going to have to pull over. “What’s the point of the courts if not?”

“The only magic users that have ever been sentenced to death by the courts have been those who used their abilities to murder people, and who were deemed liable to do so again,” Mycroft said sharply. “Nowadays they are inhibited, partly thanks to the research done at Baskerville.”

“So I’d’ve been inhibited,” Greg said. “If you’d decided to send me on to the courts.”

“It’s more likely that you’d have been given a choice between being inhibited, allowing research to be done into your ability, or joining a task force.”

“A task force.”

“This is the twenty-first century, Greg, and I do not allow people to be executed for trivial reasons.” Mycroft sounded irritated, which usually meant he was irate. “Please. Go to Dartmoor. They’re looking for a hellhound and they’ll need all the luck they can get.”

5.

“Detective Inspector Lestrade. So good to meet you.”

Greg looked up warily and stopped trying to work his hands out of the cuffs. He’d woken up maybe twenty minutes ago to find himself cuffed to a heavy wooden chair in what seemed to be a basement room, devoid of anything but a hanging bare bulb and a high, frosted window. There was just the one door, through which his visitor had entered.

He was a thin, pale, dark-haired little man, possible in his thirties, but between the jeans and sweatshirt and the boyish features, could have been either younger or older than Greg was guessing. He had a briefcase with him that he set down by the wall, near the lone socket, before moving to inspect Greg’s wrists.

“Oh, you’ve hurt yourself. Should have gotten the padded ones.” The man clucked his tongue. “But apparently they only sell those through sex shops, and I wouldn’t have wanted to give you the wrong idea.”

“What idea am I supposed to be getting?” Greg asked, because the man had just stroked his wrist with his finger. Oh, no, wait; he’d just scooped up some blood and licked it.

Wonderful.

“I’ve heard interesting things about you, Greg--may I call you Greg?” The man’s grin was bright and cheerful, but there was a knowingness to his gaze. He knew exactly what he was doing, and Greg’s skin was crawling in the worst way. “Took me years to piece it together, but to be fair, it took me years to get the pieces. And I wasn’t even sure what I was getting!”

“Is there some way we can settle this so I can go home alive?” Greg asked, without much hope.

The man made a face and shrugged. “Probably. I don’t see why not. I can even arrange it right after this little talk, if you’d be so good to explain how your ability works.”

Every muscle in Greg’s body froze, and his heartbeat thundered in his ears. “My--”

“Your ability. How you give people good luck,” the man clarified, squatting so that he was looking up into Greg’s face with the same cheerful, open expression. “Do you have to think about it? Do you have to be physically close to them? Do you have conscious control over it? Come on, give me something.”

Greg started to shake his head, his breath coming quick and shallow. “But--but--”

“Relax,” the man advised him, rubbing his legs over each knee. “Breathe deep. You’re looking a little grey in the face.”

“No one knows,” Greg spat out, blinking through the darkness that threatened to overcome his vision. “The file is gone.”

“But there were a lot of people who put work into it,” the man said, his eyes wide and soulful. “And a lot of people do a lot of talking, and if that talk is put together--”

Reassigned and transferred, Mycroft had said. Greg was still shaking his head. “No. That’s impossible.”

“I’d love to tell you that someone near and dear to you betrayed you, but I only lie professionally,” the man said, grinning again. His teeth were very white. “Britain’s good luck charm. Don’t think people haven’t noticed that Mister Mycroft Holmes goes and spends at least an hour with you before attending to those particularly delicate situations that crop up in politics. Don’t think people don’t talk, Greg. Some assume he fancies you, you know.” He winked. “But we know better.”

Greg couldn’t think of anything to say, but it didn’t matter, because his abductor wasn’t interested in listening to him talk. He stood up slowly, running his hands up Greg’s legs and then resting them on his cuffed wrists. “I have a little project going on right now,” he whispered, leaning close. Greg didn’t give into the urge to press as far back into the chair as he could, only because he knew it would do no good whatsoever. “I think I have all the bases covered--I don’t like to rely on luck--but it’s tricky. It’s very, very tricky, and I could use a little insurance.”

He stood up suddenly, backing away from Greg and going to his bag. “So is it conscious?” he asked with frank curiosity. “Or is it just something inherent in your body or blood? Because I can deal with the second.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a small electric saw.

Greg’s vision went white and his hearing seemed to go to static, but it cleared again after the man had plugged in the saw and was saying, “Like a lucky rabbit’s foot. And then you can go home.”

“Don’t,” Greg managed to rasp, and the man turned the saw on.

The high whirring sound filled Greg’s head and a feeling like light, like heat, started low in his brain. He felt it moving up from the top of his spine and sparking through the center, out into the lobes, and then it was gone.

The sound was gone, replaced by the loud popping of the electric socket giving out.

The man looked up at Greg and smiled. “Well, it seems that an old dog can learn new tricks,” he said. “I don’t know that I can let you go now.”

The heat was still there, deep in his brain, and an ache was sinking through the lobes down to meet it. Greg drew in a struggling breath and gasped out, “If I can kill a saw, what makes you think I can’t kill you?”

“True.” The man contemplated him for a long moment, smiling in an oddly sincere-looking appreciation. “I’ll just come back when you’re asleep, then, and finish the job.”

6.

Greg hadn’t chosen to make the electrical socket go up in smoke. He’d just wanted not to have his limbs hacked off. He thought that might be his ticket out of this trap.

If he focused now on getting free, and let the power build in his head again--

The pain was incredible. Almost transcendent; Greg almost didn’t recognise it as pain. There was heat; there was light. There was his brain seeming to expand while his skull certainly did not. There was the strange, high-pitched noise that some part of him realised, in a dull sort of way, was his own voice, keening.

He wanted to get free. He wanted to get out of here, with all his limbs intact. He wanted--

Not a fucking electrical fire. “Bloody fucking hell,” he rasped as the socket exploded. There were other explosions happening throughout the building; he heard an alarm going off and people screaming. Those were distant. though, and he was far more concerned with the fire making its merry way along the ceiling.

The rest of the room was cinderblock, and he should have been, well, somewhat safe. But the beam the fire was working along split in the heat and a small section fell--right next to his chair. His wooden chair. Which was flammable enough that it might well have been doused in petrol before he was cuffed to it.

“This is unreal,” he croaked as the fire raced up the leg, licking at his leg but not leaping to it. It continued up to the arm, which was attached to the leg, somehow avoiding spreading to the seat. Even as it happened, something in Greg’d mind was telling him to tip the chair.

There was another sharp crack and he saw that the fire had damaged the arm, splitting it, and he tipped the chair over, the arm cracking and freeing his left wrist. He was able to use his arm and sleeve to beat the remains of the fire on the chair, and suddenly remembered the bone saw.

It wouldn’t be enough to cut the cuffs, but he might be able to chip away at the wood enough to free his right arm, as well. The chair was heavy, but not particularly well-constructed.

Greg dragged the chair over to the wall, noting that the fire had burned itself out on the ceiling. He didn’t know if that was the case upstairs and didn’t care. He went through the bag and found, to his horror and delight, that there was a small hatchet in there as well.

It was a good thing he’d threatened the man’s life, then.

He managed to damage the chair enough that he could break it against the wall, and when he discovered that the door was locked, used the hatchet to break through that, as well. It took him long enough that he could hear the fire engines screaming to a stop. Apparently the upstairs hadn’t faired quite so well.

When he stepped out of the room into a small hallway, noting a few other doors and an exit out what he hoped was an alleyway, the ceiling of his makeshift cell fell in. Greg ran, bolting out and up into the alley, as he’d suspected, whirling around to see the building succumbing to an outrageous blaze.

He’d done that. Greg put both of his hands to his head, feeling like his brain was trying to push out through his skull. He’d done that.

And after staggering down the alley, he vomited behind someone’s bins.

7.

“He knew about you,” Greg hissed, shaking with the force of his fear and anger. Mycroft was sitting silently, still as stone, at the desk in his study. Greg was still sporting abrasions on his wrists and smelled like smoke.

“I know the man you’re speaking of--”

“And magic users are supposed to be dangerous. Jesus Christ!” Greg exploded, and sat down heavily in the chair near the fireplace. He didn’t necessarily want to be anywhere near anything that reminded him of fire, but he also couldn’t stand up any longer. His legs were shaking.

“I know the man, and I’m doing something about him,” Mycroft continued patiently. “And according to the news reports, your fire didn’t injure anyone.”

“No, it just destroyed an office building and endangered a lot of people,” Greg muttered, wiping at his face. The pain had dropped down during the taxi ride to Mycroft’s house, until it only made his vision wobbly and his stomach lurch, and of course made his head feel as if it had been in a vise. “What luck!”

“You didn’t mean for it happen, and when it did, no one was hurt,” Mycroft said, emphasising the last part. He knew that it was the more important part, to Greg. “They’ll see it was an electrical fire, the owners will get their insurance money, they’ll rebuild and all will be well. Would you like to stay here?”

“Pardon?” Greg asked weakly. He would be staying there, for a few hours, anyway. He wasn’t in any shape to go anywhere.

“I can’t ensure your safety at your home,” Mycroft said quietly. If he wasn’t pressing his palms to his eyelids, wishing he could just scoop his aching eyes out of his aching head, Greg would have looked over to see what sort of expression he was wearing for this occasion. “I can ensure it while you are here, and if you are alert, you should be safe at New Scotland Yard.”

“You know the bloke, you said,” Greg said instead of answering.

“I know...” Mycroft hesitated. “I know that he’s dangerous. I know that he’s currently attempting something against the Crown. And I know that he was the bomber you and Sherlock tried to stop.”

Greg had to open his eyes now, though it hurt like hell. “That was Sherlock’s criminal mastermind puzzle friend?”

Mycroft blinked a few times at hearing that description. “Hardly a friend, but yes. I’m working on something to ensure his, ah, fall. But he’s infiltrated several departments that give me information. I have to act very carefully.”

“I’m going to throw up,” Greg announced then, and wondered if Sherlock would have believed how quickly Mycroft was able to get him a bin.

“You need water and rest,” Mycroft muttered, rubbing his back as Greg bent over the bin, heaving and bringing nothing up. He’d left it all in the alley. “Come on, you can stay in the guest room.”

“Can I die instead?” Greg asked. His headache was intensifying. 

“Not in my house.” Mycroft hauled him up, getting Greg’s arm over his shoulders and pulling him along. “That would be horrible etiquette.”

“You were the better abductor. You asked nicely and didn’t tie me up and gave me things instead of trying to cut off my foot.”

He could feel Mycroft laughing. “I did set the bar rather high, didn’t I?”

8.

Sherlock came to Mycroft’s house just once while Greg was staying there, the day after the fire. Greg was asleep when he got there, nestled in the guest room and still suffering from a headache.

He woke up when Sherlock slid into the bed, wrapping his arms around Greg’s waist and pressing his forehead to Greg’s skull.

“No luck left,” Greg rasped. “Try again in a year.”

“Shut up,” Sherlock told him, and they fell silent, Greg trying his hardest to fall back asleep and forget how much he hurt.

He thought he heard Sherlock whisper, “I’m sorry,” before he fell unconscious, but he didn’t give it much thought upon waking. There was nothing for Sherlock to be sorry for.

He wasn’t there in the morning, but that didn’t surprise Greg. The headache lingered, now down to a clawing, throbbing pain, but he could move. He hobbled into the ensuite and winced at the mirror, at the lines dominating his face.

A quiet knock on the bedroom door let him know that noise was going to be an enemy today. “Greg?” Mycroft asked very softly.

“I’m in the loo,” Greg rasped, his head aching with each syllable. He managed to relieve himself and drink some water from the sink, but he needed to be lying down again. He was shaking with the effort of staying upright.

Mycroft had opened the door and was waiting patiently against the jamb. “Can you eat anything?” he said in a low, almost inaudible murmur. Greg let his face speak for him as he collapsed back into the bed. “I’ll bring you water, then.”

He pulled the duvet up, too, and closed the curtains, blocking out most of the light. Greg was almost asleep again when he felt the gentle, cool hand on his forehead, stroking his hair back. 

9.

Greg felt sick upon seeing the man they arrested in the Tower. It was him. The bloke who tried to cut his foot off. Jim Moriarty.

And he was set free after the jury refused to find him guilty of all the things he damn well did.

“This is bollocks,” he snarled at Sally, who was almost running to keep up with him. 

It got even worse when every single person around him lost their sense and decided Sherlock Holmes--Sherlock, who had solved dozens of their cases and put dozens of confessed criminals behind bars--was the true villain of the piece. And Sherlock certainly didn’t help; why would he run from the police? And why would John punch the Chief Inspector in the face? Where was the sense in any of that?

But his anger didn’t last long. It certainly didn’t outlast Sherlock’s suicide.

So much for being good luck.

It was possible that, in learning to control it--which he’d been experimenting with more and more, with Mycroft’s help--he’d lost his ability to unconsciously will good fortune into the lives of people he cared about. 

Mycroft wasn’t so sure. “We’re keeping this need to know, but I think you might need to know it. Jim Moriarty is dead.”

“What?” Greg said, looking up from his contemplation of a photo of Sherlock and Mycroft as children. The things Mycroft kept around his home...

“Jim Moriarty shot himself in the head at the same time Sherlock jumped,” Mycroft said patiently, twisting his ring with his opposite hand. Greg had always meant to ask him about that ring, especially as he’d been living at the man’s house for months and he knew there was no wife or husband. “He’s dead. I’ve seen the body.”

“Why would he shoot himself in the head?” Greg asked. “Why would Sherlock jump if he’d shot himself in the head?”

“An investigation is pending,” Mycroft said softly, turning away. “But he’s dead, and that’s luck for the entire world.”

“You think he was that dangerous,” Greg whispered, but of course Mycroft heard it anyway. The man had ears like a bat.

“He was. That’s fact, not opinion.” Mycroft hesitated. “You can go home now, if you wish.”

And there it was. Greg looked up from the photo, his heart beating wildly. If Jim Moriarty was dead, then he could go home. Back to his empty flat, because Annie had moved out months ago. Back to his empty life, because his most frequent home invader and surprisingly dear friend was dead. Back to uninterrupted wondering if his attempt to control his magic was the reason for that death.

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” he said.

10.

There were many reasons Greg could give for everything being his fault. No one would listen to any of them.

“I should have done more investigating on my own,” Sally said dully. “I shouldn’t have brought the Chief into it. I shouldn’t have made it about his job.” She wanted to transfer, but Greg wouldn’t allow it. He needed her, and he needed her to stop blaming herself.

“If I’d been there sooner, or--” John shook his head, and took a sip of his water. He wouldn’t drink. Said his sister had started out like that. Privately, Greg thought he could use a drink or two and if he hadn’t become an alcoholic already, he wasn’t likely to now. But John didn’t want anything to dent his pain.

“You can’t take the blame for someone else’s actions,” Mycroft reminded him. “You skipped lunch again. You’ll make yourself ill.” Greg didn’t know if Mycroft was grieving. He didn’t seem to be, but he was incredibly private about, well, everything. Even when he’d lived with him, Greg had never seen Mycroft wearing anything but a three piece suit.

He ate his lunch and went about his work, cleared even as Sherlock was cleared, feeling the loss of his friend more and more with each case.

“I should retire,” he told Mycroft at one of their now twice-weekly coffee meetings. The second one in the week, the Friday morning meeting, was always at Mycroft’s club. 

“You shouldn’t retire,” Mycroft countered.

“My solve rate is in the toilet.”

“Your solve rate is approaching that of most of your coworkers,” Mycroft said mildly, looking into his cup. On Fridays, Mycroft made no pretense and had tea rather than coffee. “You’re becoming a normal person, rather than superhuman.”

“I can’t keep my Sergeant from trying to transfer,” Greg said, raising his voice. He didn’t like what Mycroft’s information revealed about himself. 

“Set up a meeting for her and John Watson. She’ll try to apologise to him, he’ll set her straight on Moriarty’s abilities and influence, and they’ll have someone else with whom to commiserate.” Mycroft took a sip of his tea and looked politely up at Greg. “That takes care of your next complaint as well, I hope you’ve noticed.”

“I don’t know what to do about you,” Greg said, putting his own mug down. He liked the coffee at the Diogenes because it was rich and flavorful, but there was another thing he didn’t like revealed about himself. He’d always had shite coffee at home and at work and why the hell hadn’t he developed a greater appreciation for it?

“That I can’t help you with,” Mycroft said, sitting back in his chair. “I’m difficult, even for me.”

“That’s a lie,” Greg said.

Mycroft tilted his head. “Then, you have options. The first choice you have to make is whether or not you can accept that I do not and will not blame you for Sherlock’s choices.”

“If I can’t?”

“I would advise not meeting with me again, because eventually you will be forced to conclude that I don’t blame you, and don’t plan to,” Mycroft said easily. “Now ask me about the other.”

Greg smiled in spite of himself. “What happens if I accept?”

“Then we ought to continue our meetings and see if we can’t help you come into real, conscious control of your abilities. Or move on from coffee to lunch, and from lunch to dinner.”

An unwelcome thought whispered through Greg’s brain: Some assume he fancies you. But we know better. “Dinner?” he repeated, trying to scrub the memory from his brain.

Mycroft was focused on his tea. “You wondered about my ring.”

“Yeah, well.” Greg stopped, awkward and confused.

“I was married. It didn’t work out.” Mycroft was still staring at his tea. “I wasn’t entirely able to let it go. Dwelt on it far longer than I should have, but,” he smiled and shrugged, still not looking up, “I can be forgiven a few flaws, can’t I?”

“A few?” Greg asked, and was surprised into laughing at Mycroft’s fierce glare. “I’m sorry! I’m not sure what I was saying there.”

“Consider your words more carefully,” Mycroft instructed, looking back down at his tea.

Jim Moriarty didn’t know everything. Greg felt curiously cheerful. “Dinner?” he repeated. “No, you’re right. Lunch first.”

Mycroft finally looked up.

11.

“This is one case you’ll want to take,” Mycroft told him.

The murder of Ronald Adair. It was one of the difficult ones, the ones Greg frequently wished Sherlock was around to consult on. He felt a dull ache whenever he thought it, and tried to avoid taking those cases.

But there was something about the way Mycroft said it, and something else...

Well. Greg was feeling lucky.


End file.
